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Tomato Bisque

A creamy tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, milk, flour, butter, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Tomato Bisque

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tomato Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the milk base

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until hot.

  2. Mix the flour with a little cold milk to create a paste.

  3. Add the flour mixture to the hot milk and stir well.

  4. Add the butter, salt, and pepper to the mixture.

Add the tomatoes and serve

  1. Cook the tomatoes.

  2. Strain the tomatoes.

  3. Add the strained tomatoes to the milk mixture.

  4. Stir in the baking soda.

  5. Serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the creamy body of the bisque.
Flour
Thickens the milk base into a smooth, creamy texture.
Canned tomatoes
Provide the main tomato flavor and acidity.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some tomato acidity, reducing curdling risk.

The step that matters

Adding the strained tomatoes to the milk mixture. Tomatoes are acidic and can curdle hot milk. Baking soda is added to neutralize acid, so the bisque stays smooth rather than separating.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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